Obama Invites Local Mom to Join Discussion at White House (Video)
Neeta Datt of Burtonsville has been a volunteer for more than 20 years and she recently had the chance of a lifetime – an opportunity to meet with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.
“When we were waiting to go into the Oval Office, we thought someone’s going to open the door and it was actually President Obama who opened the door for us,” said Neeta Datt, lead chair Organizing for Action Montgomery County. “It was just so special.”
Organizing for Action Montgomery County is a non-profit organization that has been working to promote the enrollment of neighbors, family and friends in Obamacare.
“We’re connecting the dots,” Datt said. “There is the place where the people can get enrolled and then there are the people who need to be enrolled but they really don’t know how to reach there how to get information how to get enrolled so we’re connecting the dots and I see that in Montgomery county at least this is where my base is is that I don’t see very many organizations do what we are doing.”
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama meet with moms in the Oval Office. Photo courtesy White House.
President Obama invited eight moms to the White House on Dec. 18 to discuss how to further the enrollment of young family members in the Affordable Care Act.
“I went there as a Mom and an organizer and that’s how I got invited over there because we’ve done some really tremendous work here in the field,” Datt said.
During the meeting, Obama said that he wanted to speak with moms because they’re often the ones making the healthcare decisions in the home and they also have the power to reach young members of the community.
“There’s something about moms,” Obama said during the meeting. “Moms can tell young people who think they’re invincible that they’re not and at least prod them to get information.”
“They really do feel that they’re invincible they nothing will really happen until something hits them so as a parent they trust us, they trust their moms in that we can talk to them, we can advise them,” Datt said.
Her organization made thousands of calls, knocked on hundreds of doors, and distributed numerous flyers to inform the community of the enrollment process.
For Neeta and her volunteers, she says that hitting the streets and reaching the people of Montgomery County is rewarding.
“When volunteers started doing it, when we started going and approaching and giving information we had some of the people crying literally with tears in their eyes, thank you so much for helping us, I needed this information, I just didn’t know where to get it from,” Datt said.
For more information about Organizing for Action, visit their website here.
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